Storm Week Shopping List: What to Buy Locally Before It Hits

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Storm Week Shopping List: What to Buy Locally Before It Hits

Disclosure: Bug Out Bag Builder is reader-supported. Links on this page may be affiliate links to Amazon or to gear makers; if you buy through them I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend gear I have used or would carry myself.

Every storm season I watch the same thing happen. The forecast firms up, everyone gets nervous at once, the water aisle empties, and the "arrives Thursday" button on your phone quietly turns into next Tuesday. Ordering online is great for gear you buy months ahead. When the storm is two days out, the store down the road is the only delivery that beats it.

This is my storm-week list: the things worth buying locally, roughly in the order they sell out, with a Home Depot and a Walmart link for each so you can check what your store has and order it for pickup before you leave the house. They're plain links; neither store pays us for them.

The rest of your kit, the gear that never sells out, belongs in your bag long before any forecast. If you haven't built one yet, the Build my bag quiz puts a complete one together in about a minute.

Shop Early, Shop Once

  • Go as soon as a storm shows up in your forecast, not when the warning is issued. By the warning, everyone else is in line with you.
  • Check stock online and order for pickup. Both stores show what's on the shelf at your local store. Pickup beats wandering an empty aisle.
  • Bring a list. Stress makes you buy three loaves of bread and forget the batteries.
  • Fill your car's gas tank on the way home. Gas pumps need power too, and the lines only get longer.

1. Water

Water goes first because it goes first. Ready.gov says to plan on one gallon per person per day for several days, for drinking and sanitation. For a family of four, that's a lot of jugs, so start here.

2. Light and Batteries

Batteries vanish right after water. Count every flashlight, lantern, radio and headlamp in the house, and buy spares for each one in the sizes they actually take.

  • Batteries (AA, AAA and D): Home Depot · Walmart
  • Battery lanterns, one for each room you'll actually use. I'd much rather light a dark house with lanterns than with candles. Home Depot · Walmart
  • Power banks, charged before the storm arrives: Home Depot · Walmart

3. Fuel, Generators and the Rule That Keeps You Alive

This is the part people get wrong. The CDC says never use a generator, grill or other fuel-burning device inside your home, garage or carport, and to run the generator outside, at least 20 feet from doors, windows and vents. Not in the garage with the door open. Not on the porch under the window. Twenty feet, outside. The battery CO alarm is cheap insurance for the nights the power is out.

4. Food and Keeping It Cold

Once the power goes, FoodSafety.gov says a closed refrigerator keeps food cold for about 4 hours, and a full freezer holds its temperature for about 48. After that, you're living out of coolers and the pantry.

  • A good cooler, and the ice to go in it the day before: Home Depot · Walmart
  • A manual can opener. Ready.gov puts one in its basic disaster kit, and it's the thing everyone forgets until the cans are open on the counter. Home Depot · Walmart
  • Canned and shelf-stable food your family will actually eat: Walmart
  • Heavy trash bags, for garbage you can't put out, and for a dozen other jobs: Home Depot · Walmart

5. Protect the House

6. Winter Storms

The carbon monoxide rule from the generator section goes double in winter, when everyone is tempted to bring a heater or a grill inside. Our Winter Storms guide covers staying warm without the power.

7. Cash, Prescriptions and Paperwork

  • Cash in small bills. When the power is out, card readers and ATMs usually are too.
  • Prescription refills before the storm, not after the pharmacy has closed.
  • Flood insurance is not a storm-week purchase. FEMA says there is a 30-day waiting period between buying a flood policy and the day it takes effect, so buy it months before you need it.

What to Buy Months Ahead Instead

None of this replaces a bag. The gear that makes a storm survivable never makes it through checkout in time once a forecast hits: a NOAA weather alert radio + Add to bag~$47 · 1 lb, a solar power bank + Add to bag~$36 · 9.3 oz, a water filter like the Sawyer Mini + Add to bag~$29 · 1.4 oz, and a real first aid kit. Build the bag once, keep it by the door, and storm week turns into a short trip to the store instead of a panic.

Our storm guides cover what to do before, during and after:

And if you want the whole kit on paper, grab the free printable 72-hour checklist.

Sources

About the Author: 

Mr.BOBB is EMT-certified, a CERT team member, a Ham Radio General class operator and a Mass Casualty Events-trained first responder, with more than 15 years of preparedness behind him. He built his first bug out bag in 2010 and the site followed soon after. He created the BOBB Five-Part Emergency System and the WUSH Bag concept.